Offices come with multiple benefits, including enabling colleagues to feed off each other's energy.Having an office space where you have good light and a good environment can just make you feel a little inspired, and enables you to be a bit more brave.

An Ode To The Office

<a href="https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/workforce/hopes-and-fears-2022.html">11% of US workers would prefer to work full-time in the office, and 62% said they’d like to spend at least some</a> time there. More than half (51%) of managers are also confident their <a href="https://www.goodhire.com/resources/articles/the-great-return-manager-survey/">employees would be keen to return to the office full-time</a>.The motivations may vary – some long for the sociability of the office, while others prefer a clear boundary between work and home. Companies will need to work out how to accommodate the needs of people who want to be in offices as well as those who don’t, as they map out their post-pandemic working models.

The Hidden Story: People Want To Come To Office

While many people love the flexibility that remote work brings, for others the loss of an office environment and the social contact it provides can be a major blow.Not having a routine where you get up, leave the house, and socialize and interact with other people throughout the day can massively <a href="http://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220616-is-remote-work-worse-for-wellbeing-than-people-think">affect your mental health</a>. Not to leave your house for long periods of time isn't good for you.

In Favor Of Commuting To Office Daily

In a survey of full-time remote workers, two thirds are concerned about missing out on development opportunities by being based at home.Only 40% of UK workers surveyed by employment and HR specialists are confident that office-based and home-based staff will be rewarded equally in the next 12 months.

Office Equals The Work Mode

Working in an office to learning at a university campus.Your brain automatically switches to a ‘work mode’ when you're surrounded by colleagues who are hard at work. The smell of ink from the printer, the silent tapping on the keyboards, the quiet chatter in the coffee room, all of that truly helps. It's the atmosphere of the place that puts you in the working mood and raises your productivity.

The Campus Analogy

Companies need to create a culture of communication and flexibility to meet employees’ needs. For those businesses requiring people to work remotely, that includes creating more opportunities for staff to connect via company-wide socials, regular check-ins from line managers and turning video calling into the default mode of catching up rather than email.It encourages employees to stay connected and helps reduce loneliness and fatigue.

What Companies Can Do

The loudest voices may be remote-work advocates, but plenty of other people can’t get back to the office fast enough.

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

business

Business

The people who hate working from home

Let’s imagine you find yourself on an airplane, in the sky, without a pilot. You are in a non-normal situation.A useful guide to your initial actions if you’re in such a pickle is a simple mnemonic called ANC: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.  So, aviate. You need to keep the plane in the safe, stable flight you found it in.

Up In The Sky With No Pilot

Use the control wheel and the horizon displayed on the attitude indicator to level the wings. If it’s gin-clear outside and the real horizon is obvious to you, feel free to use it.Next, take a look at the altimeter and the vertical speed indicator. Pick an altitude as your target—a simple number near your current altitude, like 10,000 or 15,000 feet. If you’re climbing away from your target, then very gently push the control column forward—that is, away from you—until you’ve stopped climbing.

Get On The Steering Wheel!

If you’re descending, then pull the control column back, toward you, until you’re not descending anymore. Be gentle, as it’s easy to overcorrect. Now, look at the airspeed indicator. Pick a target speed toward the higher end of the safe range. It’s impossible to give numbers for every airplane, but try 100 knots in a small plane, 250 knots in a small airliner, and 280 knots in something like a 747. If your speed is higher than your target, pull the throttles or thrust levers back slightly to reduce power. If it’s lower, then add power.

Picking A Speed After You Have Control On The Aircraft

The goal is to reach an equilibrium in which your speed and altitude are safe and stable. Note the pitch attitude and power setting at which this occurs. The problem, as you’ll soon realize, is that the inputs required to correct one aspect of your flight path will almost certainly upset another one. The best way to catch any unintended changes early is to move your eyes between the primary instruments in a consistent pattern. This pattern is called the scan, and scanning is something you have to constantly do.

Maintaining Being Alive

Sometimes (Scan!) just (Scan!) maintaining (Scan!) level (Scan!) flight (Scan!) requires you to hold an awful lot of forward or backward force on the controls. This brings up the important concept of trimming. Trimming, you might say, is a way of resetting the conditions under which the controls feel neutral. Or to put it another way, a perfectly trimmed plane would carry on doing what you want it to, even if you were to let go of the controls.

Trimming The Controls

Planes are typically trimmed by adjusting the positions of the panels and surfaces on the wings and tail that act on each of the three axes—roll, pitch, and yaw. Imagine an engine failure on a plane that has one engine under each wing. You’d need a lot of rudder input to keep the plane flying straight ahead as It’s tiring to hold that rudder position for a long time—and if you trim correctly, you won’t have to.

How To Trim The Plane

In routine flight, pilots most often trim in pitch, especially after a change of speed. Look for a trim wheel, or trim switches on the control wheel. If you find you have to hold a forward force on the controls to maintain level flight, slowly roll the wheel or switch forward until that force is no longer necessary. If you’re constantly pulling back, then trim backward.

Trim Wheel And Trim Switch

Navigate a safe flight path (in relation to mountains, storms, air traffic zones, and other aircraft) and communicate with the folks who need to know what you’re doing, or who can help you to achieve a safe outcome. For a trained pilot, navigation is a more immediate priority than communication (hence the order of the mnemonic, first A, then N, and last of all C). But for you the opposite is true, because unless you can see an airport right in front of you, you’re going to need outside help to remain clear of terrain and to find a runway.

The Next Step: Safe Flight Path And Communication

Radios work like a party line. Everyone tuned in to a given frequency can hear what anyone else says, but only one person can speak at a time. It’s basically a giant conference call in the heavens, one that can be quite intimidating for new pilots.To speak you need to press and hold a “Transmit” button, then release it when you’ve finished, just as you would on a walkie-talkie.

How To Talk In The Radio

There’s probably a button or switch on the control wheel, often on the back. If you’re sitting on the left side of the cockpit then it’s likely to be under your left index finger, a carefully chosen position that allows you to speak on the radio without removing your hand from the controls. Some switches rock up to transmit, and down to speak via the intercom that goes straight into the other pilot’s headset.

Finding The Radio 'Transmit' Button

You might also look for a “hand mic,” a microphone with a transmit button right on it. As you search for the transmit switch, keep in mind that on some control wheels and sidestick controllers there’s an autopilot disconnect button, often red, where your thumb might land. You do not want to press that.A pilot transmission often follows a standard four-part format: whom you’re addressing; who you are, expressed as a call sign, or identifier, that’s absolutely unique to your aircraft or your flight; where you are; and what you want.

Talking On The Radio While Flying A Plane

Use your flight number or the aircraft registration (it will probably be on a placard in the cockpit).Give your altitude and position—as best you know it—and a concise summary of your situation. Then release the transmit button (important!) and listen for a reply.If you don’t hear one, transmit again. If you still don’t hear a reply, it’s time to change frequency. Look for the radio’s control panel (below), which will have multiple digital displays of numbers in a certain format—typically three digits, a decimal point, and then a few more digits, such as 134.975.

Life-Saving Communication: Do It Right

If no one has responded to your initial call, the frequency to enter now is 121.500 MHz, the universal emergency frequency. Select this in the standby field, then swap the standby frequency into the active field by pressing the bidirectional arrow button. Change the frequency on all the panels you can find. Also, press every radio panel button with a “1” or “L” on or near it, to make sure you’re transmitting via the correct radio, and not, for example, repeatedly making a PA (public address) to the cabin. Then transmit your call.

What To Do In Case Of Radio Silence

Now that you’ve established communications, it’s time to navigate. Ask the controller for a direction to fly in to keep you clear of terrain and perhaps also bad weather—in some parts of the world the controllers can see weather systems on their screens. When the controller decides that you need to turn, he or she will give you a heading (known as a “vector”), measured in degrees, such as 090 degrees for east. Look down at the heading indicator and then gently turn the control wheel in the desired direction. You don’t want to roll too steeply.

Navigate The Plane

As you roll, you’ll need to pull back on the control column a little and probably add power too. That’s because some of the lift that was keeping you in level flight is now being deployed “sideways” to turn you. If you don’t create more lift, you’ll start to descend. Pulling back creates that lift (and the more steeply you bank, the more you need to pull). But it also creates more drag, so you’ll need more power to maintain your speed. And so it goes on. That’s why the scan is so important.

Pulling The Aircraft

Now you know how to keep the aircraft flying—to aviate. The controller you’re in communication with is helping you to navigate. In fact, you’ve earned a pause for another cup of tea (but actually, keep on scanning). Nor should you miss the chance to have a little fun (the technical aviation term for “fun,” by the way, is “familiarizing yourself with the feel of the airplane”). Try some gentle turns or climbs or, for extra points, combine them in a climbing turn. Enjoy!

Breathe Again

Up in the sky in the cockpit with no pilot.

Print this out and bring it with you on your next flight. Just in case.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

How to Fly a Plane in an Emergency Situation

Most companies are not great at executing complex goals. Many leaders think their strategy is good but complain that implementation is the problem. One study showed that three out of five companies rate their organisation as weak on strategy execution. This is because of a general lack of understanding of the various factors at play. Three steps can build the right execution system.<ol><li>Achieving strategic clarity</li><li>Achieving organisational clarity</li><li>Building a management system</li></ol>

Building the Right Execution System

It's vital to have a strategy that can and should be executed. A well-executed strategy will match your aspirations and your capabilities. <ul><li>Is your strategy set at the right level of ambition? Two problems exist: Inaccurate optimism "How can this possibly work?" and irrational pessimism.</li><li>Do you know what capabilities are essential for your strategy? First, identify the essential organizational capabilities the new strategy will require, and then know if these capabilities are something you can build.</li></ul>

 Achieving Strategic Clarity 

Once you select the right level of ambition and understand the key capabilities required to achieve it, you can align your organization towards the key challenges for executing it. <ul><li>Have you specified which unit owns which part of your strategy? Group key choices around two axes: Find the key subset of strategic goals, and consider the strategic capabilities to cut across these groups.</li><li>Have you built the right interactions between these key units?  </li><li>Have you assigned the right talent to the right roles? Build the right roles, then map the executive talent onto the key roles.</li></ul>

Achieving Organizational Clarity

The key custodians of the execution become the managers. The approach combines management hierarchy with two key conditions to allow for the successful adaptation of strategy. <ul><li>How have you empowered your staff? How can they be supported to achieve what they need?</li><li>How have you built self-corrective feedback into your system? It should allow executives to quickly understand what is working well and what is not in the fastest and clearest way possible.</li></ul>

Building A Management System

Three out of every five companies rate their organization as weak on strategy execution. When you dig into the potential barriers to implementation, there is a general lack of understanding of the various factors at play, resulting in the inevitable managerial justifications — “poor leadership,” “inadequate talent,” “lack of process excellence,” etc. This article suggests three key steps to build the right execution system: 1) a good strategy, 2) the right organization, and 3) effective management. With these three ingredients in place, human ingenuity can be unleashed, and employees can collectively deliver on the company’s strategic goals.

strategy

Strategy

How to Move from Strategy to Execution

Over the past 12 years, Chris Anderson has had a ringside seat, listening to many hundreds of amazing TED speakers. He’s helped them prepare their talks for prime time, and learned directly from them the secrets of what makes for a great talk.And even though these speakers and their topics all seem completely different, they actually do have one key common ingredient. And it’s this: Your number one task as a speaker is to transfer into your listeners’ minds an extraordinary gift - a strange and beautiful object that we call an idea.

The #1 Task Of A Speaker

During a talk, X number of people, many of whom have never seen each other before, are finding that their brains are starting to sync with the speaker’s brain and with each other. They’re literally beginning to exhibit the same brain-wave patterns. They’re not just feeling the same emotions; there’s something even more startling happening.

Brains Sync

If we could look inside the speaker’s brain, we would see billions of interconnected neurons in an impossible tangle. But if we looked closer, we would see that a few million of them are linked to each other in a way which represents a single idea. And incredibly, this exact pattern is being recreated in real time inside the minds of everyone listening; in just a few minutes, a pattern involving millions of neurons is being teleported into X minds, just by people listening to a voice and watching a face.

Ideas Teleport

What is an idea anyway? Well, we can think of it as a pattern of information that helps us understand and navigate the world. Ideas come in all shapes and sizes, from the complex and analytical to the simple and aesthetic.Our minds are teeming with ideas, and not just randomly. They're carefully linked together. Collectively they form an amazingly complex structure that is our personal worldview. It’s our brain's operating system. It's how we navigate the world. And it is built up out of millions of individual ideas.

Our Ideas Are Our OS

That’s why ideas really matter: if communicated properly, they're capable of changing, forever, how someone thinks about the world, and shaping their actions both now and well into the future. Ideas are the most powerful force shaping human culture.

Human Software Update: New Ideas Installation

If you accept that your number one task as a speaker is to build an idea inside the minds of your audience, here are four guidelines for how you should go about that task: <ol><li>limit your talk to just one major idea</li><li>give your listeners a reason to care</li><li>build your idea, piece by piece, out of concepts that your audience already understands</li><li>make your idea worth sharing</li></ol>

Guidelines For Successfully Installing Ideas 

Ideas are complex things; you need to slash back your content so that you can focus on the single idea you’re most passionate about, and give yourself a chance to explain that one thing properly. You have to give context, share examples, make it vivid. So pick one idea, and make it the line running through your entire talk, so that everything you say links back to it in some way.

Limit Your Talk To Just One Major Idea

Before you can start building things inside the minds of your audience, you have to get their permission to welcome you in. And the main tool to achieve that? Curiosity. Stir your audience’s curiosity. Use intriguing, provocative questions to identify why something doesn’t make sense and needs explaining. If you can reveal a disconnection in someone’s worldview, they’ll feel the need to bridge that knowledge gap. And once you've sparked that desire, it will be so much easier to start building your idea.

Give Your Listeners A Reason To Care

You use the power of language to weave together concepts that already exist in your listener’ minds - but not your language, their language. You start where they are. The speakers often forget that many of the terms and concepts they live with are completely unfamiliar to their audiences. Now, metaphors can play a crucial role in showing how the pieces fit together, because they reveal the desired shape of the pattern, based on an idea that the listener already understands.

Build From Your Listeners’ Ground Up

Ask yourself the question: “Who does this idea benefit?” And be honest with the answer. If the idea only serves you or your organization, then, sorry, it’s probably not worth sharing. The audience will see right through you. But if you believe that the idea has the potential to brighten up someone else’s day or change someone else’s perspective for the better or inspire someone to do something differently, then you have the core ingredient to a truly great talk, one that can be a gift to them and to all of us.

Make Your Idea Worth Sharing

There's no single formula for a great talk, but there is a secret ingredient that all the best ones have in common. TED curator Chris Anderson shares this secret - along with four ways to make it work for us.

There's no single formula for a great talk, but there is a secret ingredient that all the best ones have in common. TED curator Chris Anderson shares this secret -- along with four ways to make it work for you. Do you have what it takes to share an idea worth spreading?

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

communication

Communication

humanresources

Human Resources

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

TED's Secret To Great Public Speaking

<ul><li>The customer is the hero, not your brand.</li><li>Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but customers buy solutions to internal problems.</li><li>Customers aren’t looking for another hero; they’re looking for a guide.</li><li>Customers trust a guide who has a plan.</li><li>Customers do not take action unless they are challenged to take action.</li><li>Every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending.</li><li>Never assume people understand how your brand can change their lives. Tell them.</li></ul>

Key Takeaways From The Book

If we haven’t clarified our message, our customers won’t listen.The more simple and predictable the communication, the easier it is for the brain to digest.There are two critical mistakes brands make when talking about their products and services:<ul><li>They fail to focus on the aspects of their offer that will help people survive and thrive; and</li><li>They cause their customers to burn too many calories in an effort to understand their offer.</li></ul>Make your company’s message about something that helps the customer survive and do so in such a way that they can understand it without burning too many calories.

The Key to Being Seen, Heard, and Understood

A CHARACTER who wants something encounters a PROBLEM before they can get it. At the peak of their despair, a GUIDE steps into their lives, gives them a PLAN, and CALLS THEM TO ACTION. That action helps them avoid FAILURE and ends in a SUCCESS.We always know:<ul><li>What does the hero want?</li><li>Who or what is opposing the hero getting what she wants?</li><li>What will the hero’s life look like if she does (or does not) get what she wants?</li></ul>Potential customers must be able to answer the following:<ul><li>What do you offer?</li><li>How will it make my life better?</li><li>What do I need to do to buy it?</li></ul>

The Secret Weapon That Will Grow Your Business: The Hero's Story

When we identify something our customer wants and communicate it simply, the story we are inviting them into is given definition and direction.In story terms, identifying a potential desire for your customer opens what’s sometimes called a story gap. The idea is that you place a gap between a character and what they want.When we fail to define something our customer wants, we fail to open a story gap. Defining something our customer wants and featuring it in our marketing materials will open a story gap.

Identifying And Defining The Story Gap

As you create a BrandScript for your overall brand, focus on one simple desire and then, as you create campaigns for each division and maybe even each product, you can identify more things your customer wants in the subplots of your overall brand.Survival simply means we have the economic and social resources to eat, drink, reproduce, and fend off foes.Examples:<ul><li>Conserving financial resources;           </li><li>Conserving time;</li><li>Building social networks;</li><li>Gaining status;</li><li>Accumulating resources;</li><li>The innate desire to be generous; and</li><li>The desire for meaning.</li></ul>

Creating A Brandscript

The villain is the number one device storytellers use to give conflict a clear point of focus.The villain doesn’t have to be a person, but without question it should have personified characteristics.The villain should be:<ul><li>A root source;</li><li>Relatable;</li><li>Singular; and</li><li>Real.</li></ul>

The Villain

What is the chief source of conflict that your products and services defeat? Talk about this villain. The more you talk about the villain, the more people will want a tool to help them defeat the villain.In a story, a villain initiates an external problem that causes the character to experience an internal frustration that is, quite simply, philosophically wrong.Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but people buy solutions to internal problems.

Talk About The Villain

The external problems we solve are causing frustrations in people’s lives and, just like in a story, it’s those frustrations that are motivating them to call you.The only reason our customers buy from us is that the external problem we solve is frustrating them in some way. If we can identify that frustration, put it into words, and offer to resolve it along with the original external problem, something special happens. We bond with our customers because we’ve positioned ourselves more deeply into their narrative.

Solving The External Problem

The philosophical problem in a story is about the question why.A philosophical problem can best be talked about using terms like ought and shouldn’t.People want to be involved in a story that is larger than themselves.If you want to grow your business, you need to position your products as the resolution to an external, internal, and philosophical problem and frame the “Buy Now” button as the action a customer must take to create closure in their story.

The Philosophical Problem

<ul><li>Always position your customer as the hero and your brand as the guide. Always. If you don’t, you will die.</li><li>The day we stop losing sleep over the success of our business and start losing sleep over the success of our customers is the day our business will start growing again.</li><li>The two things a brand must communicate to position itself as the guide are empathy and authority.</li><li>The three things every human being wants most are to be seen, heard, and understood. This is the essence of empathy.</li></ul>

The Customer's Guide

When looking for a guide, a hero trusts somebody who knows what they’re doing. The guide doesn’t have to be perfect, but the guide needs to have serious experience helping other heroes win the day.There are four ways to add authority to your marketing.     <ul><li>Testimonials;</li><li>Statistics;</li><li>Awards; and</li><li>Logos.</li></ul>

Adding Credibility And Authority

A process plan describes the steps a customer needs to take to buy our product, or the steps the customer needs to take to use our product after they buy it, or a mixture of both.A post-purchase process plan is best used when a customer might have problems imagining how they would use our product after they buy it.An agreement plan is a list of agreements you make with your customers to help them overcome their fear of doing business with you.

Plans To Encourage Customers To Do Business With Your Brand

There are two kinds of calls to action:<ul><li>Direct calls to action; and</li><li>Transitional calls to action.</li></ul>A direct call to action is something that leads to a sale, or at least is the first step down a path that leads to a sale.Transitional calls to action, however, contain less risk and usually offer a customer something for free. Transitional calls to action can be used to ‘on-ramp’ potential customers to an eventual purchase.A good transitional call to action can do three powerful things for your brand:      <ul><li>Stake a claim to your territory;</li><li>Create reciprocity; and</li><li>Position yourself as the guide.</li></ul>

The Call To Action

Prospect Theory: People are more likely to be dissatisfied with a loss than they are satisfied with a gain. In certain situations, people are two to three times more motivated to make a change to avoid a loss than they are to achieve a gain.

Helping Customers Avoiding Failure

<ul><li>To implement “fear appeal” in your marketing, you need to inform the reader that they are vulnerable to a threat. </li><li>Then, you need to inform the reader know that since they’re vulnerable, they need to take action to reduce their vulnerability. </li><li>Next, you need to inform them about a specific call to action that protects them from the risk. </li><li>Lastly, you need to challenge people to take this specific action.</li></ul>

The Fear Appeal

When people are either fearful or unafraid, little attitude or behaviour change results.High levels of fear are so strong that individuals block them out; low levels are too weak to produce the desired effect.Messages containing moderate amounts of fear-rousing content are most effective in producing attitudinal and/or behaviour change.

The Goldilocks Approach To Fear

Always remember, people want to be taken somewhere.By foreshadowing a potential successful ending to a story, leaders captivate the imaginations of their audiences.We must tell our customers what their lives will look like after they buy our products, or they will have no motivation to do so.Brainstorm what your customer’s life will look like externally if their problem is resolved, then think about how that resolution will make them feel, and then consider why the resolution to their problem has made the world a more just place to live in.

Time For Success

The three dominant ways storytellers end a story is by allowing the hero to:    <ul><li>Win some sort of power or position;       </li><li>Be unified with somebody or something that makes them whole; and  </li><li>Experience some kind of self-realization that also makes them whole.</li></ul>Human beings are looking for resolutions to their external, internal, and philosophical problems, and they can achieve this through, among other things, status, self-realization, self-acceptance, and transcendence. If our products can help people achieve these things, we should make this a core aspect of our brand promise.

The Three Story Endings

Brands that participate in the identity transformation of their customers create passionate brand evangelists.A few important questions we have to ask ourselves when we’re representing our brand are:<ul><li>Who does our customer want to become?</li><li>What kind of person do they want to be?</li><li>What is their aspirational identity?</li></ul>The best way to identify an aspirational identity that our customers may be attracted to is to consider how they want their friends to talk about them.A hero needs somebody else to step into the story to tell them they’re different, they’re better. That is the whole work of a brand.

Creating Patrons

Building a StoryBrand is about making your customer the hero of a story.

More than half-a-million business leaders have discovered the power of the StoryBrand Framework, created by New York Times best-selling author and marketing expert Donald Miller. And they are making millions. If you use the wrong words to talk about your product, nobody will buy it. Marketers and business owners struggle to effectively connect with their customers, costing them and their companies millions in lost revenue. In a world filled with constant, on-demand distractions, it has become near-impossible for business owners to effectively cut through the noise to reach their customers, something Donald Miller knows first-hand. In this book, he shares the proven system he has created to help you engage and truly influence customers. The StoryBrand process is a proven solution to the struggle business leaders face when talking about their companies. Without a clear, distinct message, customers will not understand what you can do for them and are unwilling to engage, causing you to lose potential sales, opportunities for customer engagement, and much more. In Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller teaches marketers and business owners to use the seven universal elements of powerful stories to dramatically improve how they connect with customers and grow their businesses. His proven process has helped thousands of companies engage with their existing customers, giving them the ultimate competitive advantage. Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching you: The seven universal story points all humans respond to; The real reason customers make purchases; How to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and How to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media. Whether you are the marketing director of a multibillion-dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, Building a StoryBrand will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

books

Books

More than half-a-million business leaders have discovered the power of the StoryBrand Framework, created by New York Times best-selling author and marketing expert Donald Miller. And they are making millions.If you use the wrong words to talk about your product, nobody will buy it. Marketers and business owners struggle to effectively connect with their customers, costing them and their companies millions in lost revenue.In a world filled with constant, on-demand distractions, it has become near-impossible for business owners to effectively cut through the noise to reach their customers, something Donald Miller knows first-hand. In this book, he shares the proven system he has created to help you engage and truly influence customers.The StoryBrand process is a proven solution to the struggle business leaders face when talking about their companies. Without a clear, distinct message, customers will not understand what you can do for them and are unwilling to engage, causing you to lose potential sales, opportunities for customer engagement, and much more.In Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller teaches marketers and business owners to use the seven universal elements of powerful stories to dramatically improve how they connect with customers and grow their businesses.His proven process has helped thousands of companies engage with their existing customers, giving them the ultimate competitive advantage. Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching you:<ul><li>The seven universal story points all humans respond to;</li><li>The real reason customers make purchases;</li><li>How to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and</li><li>How to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media.</li></ul>Whether you are the marketing director of a multibillion-dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, Building a StoryBrand will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.

Donald "Don" Miller is an American author, public speaker, and business owner. He is the CEO of StoryBrand, a marketing company. He is also an author of personal essays and reflections about faith, God, and self-discovery.

Donald Miller

Building a StoryBrand

Smart is:• Situational awareness• Filtering information• Troubleshooting• Clarity of goals• Good taste• Empathy and compassion for others• The ability to make decisions that further your goalsSmart is a choice, and smart is a skill.

Are you smart

There are habits, assets and learnings that seem too expensive right now. And so we simply stick with our status quo.When we take the time to itemize the carrying benefits and write them down, understanding the accumulated benefits over time, they’re harder to overlook.

Carrying Benefits

People always address now problems before they work on later problems.All problems are short-term problems if we tell ourselves the right story. But we usually don’t, because we discount the future significantly. A grilled cheese sandwich today is more important than two grilled cheese sandwiches next week. Unless we tell ourselves a present and urgent story about what it feels like to ignore the future.

Problems Now (Problems Later)

When we seek to make change, our instinct is to start pushing. But shifting to pull can create efficiencies that can’t be matched by mass promotion.

Push Vs Pull

Skepticism is a virtue. It requires a willingness to question conventional wisdom, and the guts to accept something after you discover that it’s actually true.Denialism, on the other hand, is a willful rejection of reality. It’s safe and easy, and unproductive. Because there’s no room to change your mind.To be a generous skeptic, we need to state in advance specifically what it would take for us to engage with the proposed insight, and then do so after our standards are met.

Skepticism and Denial

Sometimes, we choose to use the urgent crisis as fuel. We set up our lives around creating these deadlines, reminding ourselves that if we cross that line, we’re dead.And then we allow the world to do it to us. To create urgencies simply to take our attention and focus.Productivity is a measure of the value of what we ship in the time we’ve got to invest. It’s not measured in drama.It’s possible to do great work without putting everything in jeopardy.

The Next Train

The strategy of the smallest viable audience doesn’t let you off the hook–it does the opposite. Instead, you have to choose your customers–who’s it for and what’s it for. And when you’ve identified them, the opportunity/requirement is to create so much delight and connection that they choose to spread the word to like-minded peers.Specificity is the way. It has nothing to do with absolute scale and everything to do with being really clear about what hook you want to be on and setting a standard for producing work that people connect to and are changed by.

Smallest Viable Audience

Great stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences.A great story is true. Not necessarily because it’s factual, but because it’s consistent and authentic. Great stories make a promise. The promise needs to be bold and audacious.Great stories are trusted. Great stories are subtle. Great stories happen fast. First impressions are far more powerful than we give them credit for.Great stories don’t always need eight-page color brochures or a face-to-face meeting. Great stories don’t appeal to logic, but they often appeal to our senses.

How to tell a great story

Great stories are rarely aimed at everyone.Great stories don’t contradict themselves.Most of all, great stories agree with our world view. The best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place.

How to tell a great story (continued)

Get smarter. Hurry. Learn something new and difficult and valuable. Learn it today and continue learning it tomorrow.Solve interesting problems.Care. More

Three simple and difficult steps

That would be you.Even if you’re not self-employed, your boss is you. You manage your career, your day, your responses. You manage how you sell your services and your education and the way you talk to yourself.Odds are, you’re doing it poorly.If you had a manager that talked to you the way you talked to you, you’d quit. If you had a boss that wasted as much of your time as you do, they’d fire her. If an organization developed its employees as poorly as you are developing yourself, it would soon go under.Think about how we manage ourselves.

The world’s worst boss

Deniability–“They decided, created, commanded or blocked. Not my fault.”Helplessness–“My boss won’t let me.”Contempt–“They don’t pay me enough to put up with the likes of these customers.”Fear–“It’s good enough, it’s not worth the risk, people will talk, this might not work…”

The four horsemen of mediocrity

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According to Robert Cialdini, people are obliged to give back to others in the form of a behavior, gift, or service that they have received first.When used tactfully, appropriately, and in a non-cheesy manner, reciprocity makes it difficult to say no.Also, the key to using the Principle of Reciprocity is to be the first to give and ensure that what you give is personalized and unexpected.

What is The Law of Reciprocity?

Guilt is sending a follow-up email to a buyer and leading with, “I never heard back.” But here’s the thing: While this wording does tend to increase reply rates, it actually decreases meetings booked by 14%.“Never heard back” makes your buyer feel guilty.It’s the opposite of The Law of Reciprocity.

Reciprocity Isn’t Guilt, Here’s How They’re Different

When sending follow-up prospecting emails, it’s possible to send a valuable note while still being tight, compact, and straightforward. Even emails that are 150+ words (considered “long”) can be effective if it’s concise, well-crafted, packed with value (info that connects the prospect or their company to your offer, AND if the message is personalized, direct, and intentional in every sentence.

Personalization matters!

Send your buyer a personalized, customized, one-off, just-for-them video. It takes extra time, effort, and additional research, but it's totally worth it.even just having your prospect see you is powerful, not just because they see you in person, but … wait for it … because of the Law of Reciprocity

Send A Custom Video 

Burden: a duty, a responsibility, the bearing of a load, something oppressive or worrisome.One of the worst things you can do as a sales rep is to ask your buyer to DO SOMETHING … to burden them.Build your champion’s buying guide for them. Take the burden! Nobody pitches your product better than you, one of the company’s top sales reps, right? Unfortunately, if you let your champion give it a go, they will likely fall back on feature selling (dumping).

Take The Burden

The top-notch sellers delight buyers with the unexpected. Generally speaking, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to meet your buyer in person. BUT, you can still do something meaningful and unexpected.COFFEE GIFT CARD!

Trigger An Unfair Exchange

Learn how the best of the best sales pros leverage the law of reciprocity to build rapport and box out the competition.

The Law Of Reciprocity: How Top Sellers Use Psychology To Win More

<ol><li> every form of communication and every type of interaction — text, email, in-person, phone, video call, and so on — is a reflection of who you are as a company.</li><li>sales emails are necessary and vital for every stage of the sales cycle: prospecting, <a href="https://www.gong.io/blog/sales-email-follow-up/">follow-ups</a>, multi-threading, negotiating, closing … all of it!</li><li>More emails = more deals. Email is the one that builds momentum in your deals, specifically email velocity … the number of emails exchanged between buyers and sellers.</li></ol>PS: It is not the number of emails YOU send, but the number of emails exchanged between YOU and the BUYER.

Why Writing Great Sales Emails Is Super Important?

ROI is one of those “bragging” stats. “Look how we helped Company ABC. We did it for them … and we can do it for YOU too!” ROI language included words or phrases in the salesperson’s email — literally “ROI” or any stats that are tied to ROI like multipliers (2x, 10x, and so on.) and percentages (7%, 42%, etc.) And the data say … using ROI language in cold emails decreases success rates by 15%.

Avoid ROI Language In Cold Emails.

Longer emails are significantly (15x) more effective in booking a meeting during cold call outreach.Remember: short and concise are not necessarily the same.Short is generally 30 words or less. Concise usually means short, but it also implies meaning and context. Longer sales emails (4+ sentences) are effective if concise and offer value to the recipient.Be sure your (longer) emails — every single world — are intentional and have specific information that connects your reader to your company or service.

Write Longer Cold Emails.

Email stats and best practices for all stages of the sales cycle.

Learn how top sales pros write better emails and jack up open rates, get insane reply rates, and close more deals from their email inbox.

How To Write A Sales Email: What The Data REALLY Says

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